Elections have consequences, and this is true to Puntland State as well. The defeat of President Said Abdullahi Deni in the recent Somalia’s presidential race in Mogadishu had impacted negatively not only on the president, but also on the entire Puntland administration and political system as a whole, including the planned one person one vote forecasts, whereby there is diminished political will to go ahead despite the pronouncements that he was committed to implementing the project of holding municipality elections.

Although President Deni has never been accused of being open to the general public and even to members of his own administration in his closed poor policy of running Puntland affairs, he is now more isolated than ever before. Nobody knows what he has been doing lately, other than he was often traveling overseas solo without any prior public announcement and any attempt to justify his over-rated trips to foreign cuntries, in particular, to Dubai and Nairobi.

Members of Puntland Cabinet are as disillusioned as the general public.The representatives of the House of Puntland Parliament are restless nowadays, only to reject the submitted list of the composition of Puntland Supreme Court by the President. The list was intended to fill in a long-time existing vacuum in Puntland judiciary. The President has used veto, however, to override the House Resolution by re-submitting the same list to the House to reconsider it at next session.

Political opposition in Puntland is slowly getting assertive following the defeat of Deni in the Federal elections, including the betrayal by his own hand-picked and funded MPs from Puntland and Jubaland.

There is anxiety and political uncertainty now in the State that worries everyone. To get out of this dilemma, Puntland political elites must get serious to embark upon political path of democratization and general elections as the only remaining option to govern.

[This article has been updated since posting.]